Effects of Health Care Payment Models on Physician Practice in the United States

By Mark W. Friedberg, et al

This report, sponsored by the American Medical Association (AMA), describes how alternative payment models (APMs) affect physicians, physicians’ practices, and hospital systems in the United States and also provides updated data to the original 2014 study. Payment models discussed are core payment (fee for service, capitation, episode-based and bundled), supplementary payment (shared savings, pay for performance, retainer-based), and combined payment (medical homes and accountable care organizations). The effects of changes since 2014 in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and of new alternative payment models (APMs), such as the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) Quality Payment Program (QPP), are also examined.

Key Findings

Payment models are changing at an accelerating pace

Physician practices, health systems, and consultants find it difficult to keep up with the proliferation of new models, with some calling for a “time out” to allow them to better adapt to current APMs.

Payment models are increasing in complexity

Alternative payment models have become increasingly complex since 2014. Practices that have invested in understanding complex APMs have found opportunities to earn financial awards for their preexisting quality — without materially changing patient care.

Risk aversion is more prominent among physician practices

Risk aversion among physician practices was more prominent. Risk-averse practices sought to avoid downside risk or to off-load downside risk to partners (e.g., hospitals and device manufacturers) when possible.

There is much more here than a casual glance might imply. The search for value-based payment in health care, as opposed to paying for volume, has led to various payment models such as shared savings, accountable care organizations, bundled payments, pay for performance (P4P), medical homes, and other alternative payment models. How well is that working?

To date, most studies have been quite disappointing. Claims of cost savings are belied when considering the additional provider costs of information technology and human manpower devoted to these models, not to mention the high emotional cost of burnout. This RAND study shows that these models are increasing in complexity, making it difficult for the health delivery system to keep up. Even worse, they are inducing risk aversion. The health care providers are trying to avoid those who most need health care – the opposite of what our health care system should be delivering.

Much of the experimentation in delivery models has been centered around reward or punishment. But, as Alfie Kohn writes, “intrinsic motivation (wanting to do something for its own sake)… is the best predictor of high-quality achievement,” whereas “extrinsic motivation (for example, doing something in order to snag a goody)” can actually undermine intrinsic motivation. It has been observed by others that the personal satisfaction of achievement of patient health care goals is tremendously rewarding, whereas the token rewards based on meager quality measurements are often insulting because of the implication that somehow token payments are a greater motivator than fulfilling Hippocratic traditions. Even more insulting are the token penalties for falling on the wrong side of the bell curve simply as a result of making efforts to care for patients with greater medical or sociological difficulties.

Quoting Alfie Kohn again, “carrots or sticks… can never create a lasting commitment to an action or a value, and often they have exactly the opposite effect … contrary to hypothesis.” The RAND report suggests slowing down and working with these models some more while increasing investment in data management and analysis with the goal of increasing success with alternative payment models. No. These models are making things worse. It’s time to abandon them and get back with taking care of our patients. The payment model we need is an improved version of Medicare that takes care of everyone. Throw out the sticks and carrots.

But however we see it, from the point of view of carrots and sticks as not able to change behavior, or by introducing ever newer models of alternative payments, the end result is the same.

Health care suffers because of the wasteful, bureaucratic, and arbitrary imposition of models that only serve to make life for physicians and hospitals harder, and makes health care more expensive and complex.

As Dr. McCanne says above, throw out the carrots and the sticks. Get rid of the models that don’t work and go to a single payer system that is streamlined and less bureaucratic and arbitrary.

For nearly a year now, I have been advocating single payer health care ever since I was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease. BTW, I am doing fine, even if I have been rejected twice for access to transplant centers due to personal reasons I won’t go into here.

Today, I found an article on The Intercept.com that reported that several candidates for Congress and other offices in Hawaii and other states have secretly secured opposition to “Medicare for All” single payer healthcare, even though they have told their voters that they support it.

According to the article, the candidates in Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District, former state Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, Hawaii Lt. Gov. Doug Chin, and Honolulu City Council Member Ernest Martin are taking heat from opponents for talking to an industry-friendly group, the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC).

The Healthcare Leadership Council seeks to advance the goals of the largest players in the private health care industry. These candidates are talking to the HLC even as public opinion is moving towards positions opposed by giant health care companies.

Kaniela Ing, a state lawmaker running for the seat on a democratic socialist platform stated that, “Democrats running in a primary election will say they support ‘Medicare for All,” but what do they say to lobbyists behind the scenes?”

In fact, the article reports, one leading candidate has campaigned on a pledge to crack down on over-priced pharmaceuticals and promote single payer, but told the consultant sent from the HLC that he would maintain drug industry friendly pricing policies and views Medicare for All with skepticism.

HLC spends over $5 million a year on industry advocacy and brings together chief executives of major health corporations, and represents an array of health industries — from insurers, hospitals, drugmakers, medical device manufacturers, pharmacies, health product distributers, and information technology companies.

HLC’s outreach in Hawaii began in January. The group told candidates, in an email obtained by The Intercept, that it was in the process of forming a coalition to “jointly develop policies, plans, and programs to achieve their vision of a 21st century system that makes affordable, high-quality care accessible to all Americans.”

This language obscures their national campaign to monitor and blunt the energy behind progressive policy reform. In an email to The Intercept, Michael Freeman, executive vice president of HLC said that they survey “congressional candidates every election cycle regarding their views on a wide range of healthcare issues.”

Former state Sen. Kim’s dossier profile said she is very pro-market, opposes any attempt at single payer, does not support price controls on pharmaceuticals and agrees that Medicare and Medicaid need to be managed by the private market.

It would seem that besides the opposition from the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry, single payer, Medicare for All, is under assault below the radar of most voters, if not most Democratic voters during the primaries.

Despite alleged strong support for bills such as the one Bernie Sanders introduced, lobbyists for the medical-industrial complex are fighting hard to defeat health care reform for all Americans, and no matter what the public attitude is, they will prevent at all costs, the transition to single payer.

HLC also keeps tabs on candidates who could be a threat to their agenda, such as Ing, stating that she vocally supports a single payer, public health care system.

Lobbyists have told executives in the health care industry to be vigilant about the threat of single payer.

“It would be a mistake for us to overlook the growing number of lawmakers who are supportive of measures to expand significantly government’s role in healthcare,” according to a report HLC published at the end of last year. The report went on to say that while these ideas do not have the political support to pass at the moment, the “momentum on the Democratic side of the aisle is undeniable,” They have dispatched teams of lobbyists to keep tabs on rising candidates.

So, even if you vote for a Democrat in November, chances are, that they will double-cross you when it comes to supporting Medicare for All. Which is wrong-headed on their part, especially the hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.

If more people are covered, and the government pays for their health care, hospitals will get more patients covered under the plan and thus more revenue, even if they charge lower prices than for private insurance, and drug companies will sell more drugs to these patients, even if the prices are brought under control.

What difference does it make if a patient gets their health are from a government plan like Medicare or Medicaid, as many already do, or if they get it through private insurance? The hospitals and drug companies still make money, just a smaller amount. The number of newly insured will offset any assumed loss of profit, thereby increasing profit, and just not from a select group of people who can afford health care on their own.

Advocates for single payer need to be vigilant also. Don’t buy a pig in a poke. Confront these and other candidates for office to see if they really believe in single payer, or are pigs with lipstick.

According to Tom, the GOP finally figured out how to fight the ACA, and he discusses three events beginning with February of last year in which the GOP-led Congress attacked the ACA. The three events are:

February 2017 – tax cut law that zeroed out the penalty for not having insurance.

February 2018 – getting 20 states to sue the federal government and contend that repeal of the penalty obviates the individual mandate making the entirety of the ACA unconstitutional.

And just last month, as I wrote yesterday, got the Justice Department to not defend the government in the suit.

Tom continues to say that if the 20 states win, pre-existing conditions, which the ACA protects, goes out the window. There are about 133 million Americans under the age of 65 who fall into that category. I am one of them.

Insurance companies are not happy either, Tom reports, and the trade association for the health insurance companies, America’s Health Insurance Plans, supports the provision under the ACA, and is quoted thus: “Removing those provisions will result in renewed uncertainty in the individual market, create a patchwork of requirements in the states, cause rates to go even higher for older Americans and sicker patients, and make it challenging to introduce products and rates for 2019,” according to a statement released by AHIP.

Finally, Tom asks the question — what happens if the 20 states win their suit? His answer, the 1.25 million Americans with Type 1 diabetes are waiting for an answer.

Yet, they and others don’t really have to wait for an answer, because the answer is staring us right in the face, but we refuse to see it, or even acknowledge its presence. Instead, we keep doing the same things over and over again, thinking the free market has the answer.

That is patently not true. A real, comprehensive, universal single payer system or an improved Medicare for All system that does not force those who are ill and don’t have a lot of money to pay for parts of the coverage, either the medical portion, or the 20% not now covered by Medicare, is the answer. Anything less is just a dog chasing a bus, catching that bus, and the dog and bus getting hurt.

The following article should alarm every decent American, especially those who wants to see every American have health care that does not eat into their life savings or cause them to go into debt.

Your humble author is one of them and may also be affected if this draconian decision is upheld by the courts and the Supreme Court. Thanks Bernie Bots and Steiners…thanks for giving us Justice Gorsuch by not voting or not voting for the Democratic candidate two years ago.

For what this will mean to Americans, here is Dr. Don McCanne’s take on it:

“Amongst the more important provisions of the Affordable Care Act were the requirements for guaranteed issue and community rating. For individuals with preexisting conditions, insurers could not deny them coverage nor could they charge them higher premiums than are charged for others in the same age group. This corrected two of the most serious defects in the individual insurance market that existed before enactment of ACA and made insurance available to many who otherwise could not purchase the plans.

Now Attorney General Jeff Sessions says that he will no longer defend these provisions. If the courts uphold his position, individuals with significant health care needs may find insurance with adequate benefits to be either unaffordable or not even available to them. Then concepts such as “universal” or “affordable” become moot.

How does this compare to our traditional Medicare program? The courts have already ruled that Part A of Medicare – the hospital benefit -is mandatory and must be accepted if the individual also accepts Social Security benefits. However, this does not apply to Part B – the physician benefits – nor to Part D – the drug benefits. Thus the courts have ruled that the government can require certain mandates in health care, but it also demonstrates that our current Medicare program needs to be improved, for this and for a great many other reasons. So a single payer, improved Medicare for all should be able to pass constitutional muster.

Once we have an improved Medicare that covers everyone, instead of thinking of it as some sort of unwanted government mandate, most of us would think of it as an automatic program ensuring health care financing for all of us – one that we have earned though our individual contributions based on ability to pay – guaranteed, affordable health care forever.”

Last month, I wrote two articles about the book by Howard Waitzkin et al. entitled, “Health Care under the Knife: Moving Beyond Capitalism for Our Health.

The first article was a review of the Introduction to the book. The second article examined the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare”, as the last stage of neoliberal health care reform.

In this article, I will critique the overall message of the book and give some reasons as to why I believe radical change in American health care and radical change in American society in general cannot take place until one key condition is met for that change.

This will also apply to the rest of the world where neoliberal policies have taken root. But since much of the impetus of these policies comes from the US and institutions the US created after World War II such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO), as well as many international financial institutions and the Gates Foundation, it will be difficult, but not impossible to turn back those policies and effect the necessary change to secure universal health care for their citizens. Some have already done so.

The authors have made a very convincing case for their argument that the failure to achieve universal health care is a result of neoliberal policies enacted over thirty years ago both here in the US and in the UK under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and under the various Conservative Party Prime Ministers, from Thatcher, Major, Cameron, and now Theresa May, and Labour PMs, Blair and Brown.

However, their prescription for how we overcome these policies assumes that social change is necessary before there can be change in health care. While technically correct, their understanding of the conditions necessary for that change is flawed.

Economic determinism, the socioeconomic theory that underpins much of Marxist thought about Capitalism and the relationship between workers and owners of the means of production is central to the thesis in “Health Care under the Knife.” But can economic determinism really explain why the central thesis of Marxism has not materialized, since Marx predicted that the contradictions inherent in Capitalism would bring about the revolution that would free the working class.

The truth is more complicated than that, because Capitalism has a nasty habit of reinventing itself, or in the case of the New Deal and the Great Society programs of the 20th century, reform the system to improve the lives of those most affected by the inequalities of the Capitalist system.

Many American families, mine included, benefitted from those reforms. Whether we are talking about Social Security, the GI Bill, student loans guaranteed by the federal government to cover the cost of college for those in the working and middle classes, job training programs, other forms aspects of the social safety net, millions of Americans have moved upward in social mobility.

Anecdotal evidence from friends and relatives, stories of celebrities rising from humble beginnings, and lately, the rise of a biracial male from the State of Hawaii, whose father was an African immigrant and whose mother was a White American, and reached the highest office of the nation, is indicative of this upward social mobility. He did it by working hard and proving that if he could do it, given his background and personal tragedy of losing his father early in his life, anyone can.

The long-predicted revolution, therefore did not happen because many working people, to use a euphemism, “made it”. Some have made it into the middle class, and some have made it into the upper middle class. And some others managed to make it into the lower strata of the upper class. They are not the proverbial “1%”, but nevertheless, they are wealthy. And happy, well-off people don’t make revolutions.

We are however, seeing a reversal among some of the middle class and working class, and that is most definitely due to neoliberalism. And the opioid crisis is decimating the White working class and economic dislocation is one reason for the increase in suicides among White males.

So, to base the argument for single payer solely based on economic determinism and the change the authors contend is necessary for that to occur, is only looking at one side.

After the ascendency of Ronald Reagan to the Presidency, I realized that there was something else besides his charm and ability to communicate effectively that made Americans vote for him overwhelmingly. But I was unable for many years to understand why beyond believing that they did not want to be poor, as many living in Socialist nations were.

However, in the evolution of my consciousness, I have discovered that a socioeconomic theory only tells part of the story. Some years ago, I learned of a biopsychosocial theory of development called Spiral Dynamics. I have written about it before in other posts.

Without going into detail, suffice it to say that Spiral Dynamics is the theory that explains how people think, either as individuals or as a collective. And the reason is it called Spiral Dynamics is because the adult human mind is an oscillating, dynamic spiral from lower order to higher orders of thinking.

Based on the research of Clare W. Graves, Don E. Beck and Christopher Cowan, patented their ideas into Spiral Dynamics. Spiral Dynamics is concerned with the life conditions and coping measures used to solve the problems life conditions present to individuals and collective societies. It also reveals the deep codes about how people think, and what they value.

Using Graves’ labels for the first six levels of existence, they borrowed the term “meme” from Richard Dawkins, the British biologist, and color coded them for better mnemonic effect, as shown in the table below. Beck and Cowan labeled their version of memes, vMemes, or value systems, as they are concerned with the values individuals and collectives manifest at any given time in their development. Individuals and collectives can exist at more than one level at any time.

The table illustrates the last three levels as they currently are represented in the American population, along with the percentage of the world population at each, and the percentage of social power they have. The US is included in these figures, and only at Green do we see what percentage of Americans are at Green. But we can use them nonetheless for our purposes here.

By adding the percentage of population at both Blue and Orange, which in today’s America represents the Republican Party’s bases’, we notice that Blue/Orange has 70% of the population. Conversely, adding the percentage of power for each gives us 80% of the power, meaning that 70% of the American population controls 80% of the social power. Given that fact, to effect any change, either in society in general, or in health care, those percentages must change.

Blue has throughout history viewed the delivery of health care as a form of charity. The word hospital comes from the Knights of the Hospital of St. John, who provided care for poor, sick, or injured pilgrims coming to the Holy Land. And more recently, several Christian denominations have established hospitals for the same purpose. Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterians are but a few of the Christian churches that have built hospitals in cities across the country. Jews also have built hospitals, even the one this writer was born in.

Orange, on the other hand, sees the delivery of health care as a commodity that can be purchased for a price through the instrument of an insurance policy issued by a for-profit insurance company. If one can pay for it, then health care is easily accessible, and available when needed. But if one is not able to do so, then they should have planned accordingly. It is not their responsibility to provide them with health care by using their hard-earned income for such care, is their reasoning.

Green, therefore believes that health care is a right, and that is how it should be. It should be no surprise that one of the areas where the Green meme is seen is in Canadian health care. Many progressives point to Canada’s system as a model for the US.

But what prevents the US from moving forward towards that model is exactly how both Blue/Orange sees health care delivery. And since Orange has most of the power between the two, it is Orange’s Capitalism and Neoliberal policies that dictate how health care is delivered, paid for, and who can get it.

Thus, the one flaw in the argument the authors of “Health Care under the Knife” have is not understanding the value systems that underpin opposition to universal health care. It is not enough to discuss the economic reasons, as they have so successfully done, but to examine the psychosocial aspects as well. Taken together, economic determinism and Spiral Dynamics, in my opinion, explains in greater detail why change cannot happen as the authors would wish, until most of the US population evolves up the spiral.

One of the outgrowths of Spiral Dynamics as theory has been its merger with economics which Said Dawlabani has termed, MEMEnomics. MEMEnomics has been defined as a new branch of social science that studies patterns of economic policies and practices by taking an integral, whole-systems approach to economic sustainability.

According to Dawlabani, the US has entered what he called the Third MEMEnomic Cycle and it is expressed as the “Only Money Matters” Meme. This period began in the 1980s, the same time when neoliberal policies began. It led to what Dawlabani called the perfect Memetic storm. It is at this juncture where we find ourselves, and it his belief that a new paradigm is needed to move into the next cycle.

So, despite polling favoring single payer health care, as the authors rightly note, powerful interests will block any movement towards single payer. Until Orange has diminished in its social power and Green’s has increased, nothing will change. And the radical change they prescribe for this to occur will not, so long as social mobility for some prevents it, and profit can be squeezed out of the system.

Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book as a significant resource for understanding the dysfunction of our broken health care system despite its one flaw of being only one part of the story.

This is according to new findings from the latest Commonwealth Fund ACA Tracking Survey.

According to the survey, the coverage declines are likely the result of two major factors:

1) lack of federal legislative actions to improve specific weaknesses in the ACA and

2) actions by the current administration that have exacerbated those weaknesses. These include the administration’s deep cuts in advertising and outreach during the marketplace open-enrollment periods, a shorter open enrollment period, and other actions that collectively may have left people with a general sense of confusion about the status of the law.

Here are the key findings:

* About 4 million working-age people have lost insurance coverage since 2016

* The uninsured rates among lower-income adults rose from 20.9 percent in 2016 to 25.7 percent in March 2018

* The uninsured rate among adults in states that did not expand Medicaid rose to 21.9 percent

* The uninsured rate increased among adults age 35 and older

* The uninsured rate among adults who identify as Republicans is higher compared to 2016

* The uninsured rate remains highest in southern states

* Five percent of insured adults plan to drop insurance because of the individual mandate repeal

What are the policy implications of this reversal?

The absence of bipartisan support for federal action has seen legislative activity shifted to the states.

Broadly, the leaving of policy innovation to states will lead to a patchwork quilt of coverage and access to health care across the country. It will fuel inequity in overall health, productivity, and well-being.

We need to get the money and the greed and the corporations out of health care altogether. We need a single payer system that does not proletarianize physicians, does not turn health care into a commodity, does not financialize it, commercialize it, and compromise it for the benefit of a few, and to the detriment to the many.

As this is May Day, the international workers’ day, wouldn’t it be nice if we could start moving in that direction, as so many other nations have already done?

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Quotes

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

– Muhammad Ali

“If people are not laughing at your goals, your goals are too small..”

– Azim Premji

“Those who say your dreams are ridiculous have given up on theirs.”

– Unknown

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

– Thomas Carlyle

“As the work is done for the employer, and therefore ultimately for the public, it is a bitter injustice that it should be the wage-worker himself and his wife and children who bear the whole penalty.”

– President Theodore Roosevelt, 1907

To permit every lawless capitalist, every law-defying corporation, to take any action, no matter how iniquitous, in the effort to secure an improper profit and to build up privilege, would be ruinous to the Republic and would mark the abandonment of the effort to secure in the industrial world the spirit of democratic fair dealing.

– Theodore Roosevelt, 1908

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

– John Kenneth Galbraith

“Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of their right to join the union of their choice.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges… which are employed altogether for their benefit.”

– Andrew Jackson

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it’s reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

– Abraham Lincoln

“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.”

“Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.”

– Karl Marx

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, NOT on fighting the old, but on BUILDING the NEW.”

– Socrates

“Every man takes the limits of his field of vision for the limits of the world”

– Arthur Schopenhauer

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

– Arthur Schopenhauer

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”

– Robin Williams

“There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.”

– Woodrow Wilson

“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”

– John Stuart Mill

“The masters of the government of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufacturers of the United States.”

– Woodrow Wilson

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”

– Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health [care] is the most shocking and inhuman[e]…”